A colorful—but incidental—Fortean.
William Wilfred Whalen was born 7 May 1882 in Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania. (Catholic Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches, 1930-[1952], Volume 1 incorrectly has it as 1886.) He was the eldest of (what I believe to be) nine children: in 1910, he was 28 and his youngest sibling was three. His father, Michael, a native of Pennsylvania, worked in a coal mine. His mother, Alice, was from Canada (and her father from France). She was giving birth well into her forties.
It is a little difficult to sort out Whalen’s life as a long man—at least it cannot be done without more intensive research. He was publishing in the early 1900s—about the same time Fort was making his start. And like Fort he did time as a journalist—in Whalen’s case, in Harrisburg. At least some of his early writing was about coal miners, echoing Fort’s tenement writing, both focused on the working class. He seems to have started college late, or went back to school, because the 1910 census has him in school, and this after he’d been writing for a few years. At some point during the 1910s, he was ordained as a Catholic priest. That’s the profession he lists on his World War I draft card. At some point he formed a friendship with the fantasy writer and newspaper editor Abraham Merritt.
William Wilfred Whalen was born 7 May 1882 in Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania. (Catholic Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches, 1930-[1952], Volume 1 incorrectly has it as 1886.) He was the eldest of (what I believe to be) nine children: in 1910, he was 28 and his youngest sibling was three. His father, Michael, a native of Pennsylvania, worked in a coal mine. His mother, Alice, was from Canada (and her father from France). She was giving birth well into her forties.
It is a little difficult to sort out Whalen’s life as a long man—at least it cannot be done without more intensive research. He was publishing in the early 1900s—about the same time Fort was making his start. And like Fort he did time as a journalist—in Whalen’s case, in Harrisburg. At least some of his early writing was about coal miners, echoing Fort’s tenement writing, both focused on the working class. He seems to have started college late, or went back to school, because the 1910 census has him in school, and this after he’d been writing for a few years. At some point during the 1910s, he was ordained as a Catholic priest. That’s the profession he lists on his World War I draft card. At some point he formed a friendship with the fantasy writer and newspaper editor Abraham Merritt.
Whalen came to national attention in the 1920s, when he had erected near his church a statue to Mary Jemison, who had been kidnapped by and lived with Native Americans. (She was the so-called White Squaw.) Many rumors and legends had accrued around her. Whalen’s interest seems to have been that she lived in the area where he preached; he wrote a play about her, presumably to pay the cost of the statue. Whatever his priestly duties, they allowed him to continue writing, and he was being noted for writing plays well into the 1930s. Supposedly, Hollywood was after him, but he resisted the siren call: Hollywood was celluloid, fake; his “hill billy” parishioners, as he called them, were real.
At some point, he moved to Fort’s old stomping grounds—the Bronx. He was there in 1942 when he filled out his World War II draft card. And that was where he died.
Whalen died 3 July 1949, from asphyxiation. He was 67.
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I am not sure that Whalen had much of anything to do with Fort, Forteanism, or the Fortean Society: the record is weak at best, confusing at worst. I do not find any reference to him in the Fortean literature until after his death, and like so much of the memories, it mangles some of the dates.
That first notice was Thayer’s remarking on Whalen’s passing, and seemed an attempt to write him into the Fortean fold, without much reason. (It also seems to have been a way to eat up space in the issue, much of the page otherwise blank.) In Doubt 26 (October 1949), Thayer said,
“Only Fortean Cleric a Pyrotic”
“‘Father Will Whalen,’ MFS 110, sometime Jesuit rector of the Church of Saint Ignatius, better known as the White Squaw Mission, Orrtanna, Pa., was found dead in a fire of unknown origin, in the Bronx, N.Y., July 15, 19FS. He was author, publisher, playwright, and the poker-playing buddy of Abe Merritt. In fact, they took each other’s pictures years ago, and sent these to YS. The papers give Whalen’s age as 65.”
Beginning with the title, there are problems with Thayer’s obituary. “Pyrotic” was his name for victims of spontaneous combustion, but there seems not reason to think Whalen’s death was mysterious in the least—beyond Thayer apparently parroting some newspaper report that the cause of the fire had not (yet?) been specified. The Wilkes-Barre Record (out of Pennsylvania) reported on Independence Day: “Firemen found the priest’s body sprawled on the floor. A handkerchief was clenched between his teeth. Police said he apparently was asphyxiated by the dense smoke before he could escape. Cause of the fire was not determined immediately but police indicated it may have started from an oil stove.” Whatever ‘mysteries’ surrounded the death—and they were hardly mysteries—nothing in the details suggested a fire that started in Whalen’s own body. If it was a joke by Thayer, it was not only in poor taste, but made no sense.
His claim that Whalen was 65 probably just reflected careless newspaper errors—the Wilkes-Barre Record said he was 67, which was also wrong. But Thayer’s report that Whalen oversaw the “White Squaw Mission” seems more rooted in fact—some people did indeed call the place that. And he was an author and playwright. He did know Merritt. (And maybe they played poker.) Perhaps Whalen and Merritt did send Thayer the pictures, as he said, but he was hardly the only one. The picture of Merritt that accompanied the obituary—showing him bare-chested, hefting a pitchfork—also appeared in Life Magazine in 1936, sent in by Whalen. Thayer could have been bosom friends with the two men—the evidence is not there, from what I have seen—but he also could have written them fan letters and gotten the pictures. Or, he could have written one, or both, when the Society was just starting looking for members to sign up.
Thayer, as far as I can tell, never outright lied about people being members when they weren’t: at most, he’d exaggerate someone’s off-handed joining the Society to promote it. Likely this was what happened here. Thayer approached, they agreed to join, and that was it, the full extent of their Fortean activities. And there is reason, beyond the biographical, to suggest that Whalen might have been inclined to join. He was something of a maverick, with an irreverent sense of humor. That same Life magazine noted that Whalen called Merritt “Satan” because of his story “7 Footprints to Satan.” This was not the conservative Catholicism that so worried Fred Shroyer!
But this is a Fortean story—and so there cannot be a nicely tied bow to the story. The confusion here comes from a small piece in Doubt 38 (October 1952). Three years after Whalen died, his surname appeared in a paragraph of credits for the issue. So maybe Whalen had sent in a clipping at some point, and Thayer held on to it, then used it when it was relevant. That would make sense, even if it did suggest that Whalen was more active in Forteanism than the above suggests. The problem, though, is that none of the reports mentioned in the issue come from before 1951. (Indeed, most of the issue covers Hayer’s vacation in Europe, with his wife, and the meeting of different Forteans there.) Maybe there was yet another Whalen who sent in material? Perhaps: but then this is the only other mention of the name, so who it is would have to remain unknown.
At some point, he moved to Fort’s old stomping grounds—the Bronx. He was there in 1942 when he filled out his World War II draft card. And that was where he died.
Whalen died 3 July 1949, from asphyxiation. He was 67.
********
I am not sure that Whalen had much of anything to do with Fort, Forteanism, or the Fortean Society: the record is weak at best, confusing at worst. I do not find any reference to him in the Fortean literature until after his death, and like so much of the memories, it mangles some of the dates.
That first notice was Thayer’s remarking on Whalen’s passing, and seemed an attempt to write him into the Fortean fold, without much reason. (It also seems to have been a way to eat up space in the issue, much of the page otherwise blank.) In Doubt 26 (October 1949), Thayer said,
“Only Fortean Cleric a Pyrotic”
“‘Father Will Whalen,’ MFS 110, sometime Jesuit rector of the Church of Saint Ignatius, better known as the White Squaw Mission, Orrtanna, Pa., was found dead in a fire of unknown origin, in the Bronx, N.Y., July 15, 19FS. He was author, publisher, playwright, and the poker-playing buddy of Abe Merritt. In fact, they took each other’s pictures years ago, and sent these to YS. The papers give Whalen’s age as 65.”
Beginning with the title, there are problems with Thayer’s obituary. “Pyrotic” was his name for victims of spontaneous combustion, but there seems not reason to think Whalen’s death was mysterious in the least—beyond Thayer apparently parroting some newspaper report that the cause of the fire had not (yet?) been specified. The Wilkes-Barre Record (out of Pennsylvania) reported on Independence Day: “Firemen found the priest’s body sprawled on the floor. A handkerchief was clenched between his teeth. Police said he apparently was asphyxiated by the dense smoke before he could escape. Cause of the fire was not determined immediately but police indicated it may have started from an oil stove.” Whatever ‘mysteries’ surrounded the death—and they were hardly mysteries—nothing in the details suggested a fire that started in Whalen’s own body. If it was a joke by Thayer, it was not only in poor taste, but made no sense.
His claim that Whalen was 65 probably just reflected careless newspaper errors—the Wilkes-Barre Record said he was 67, which was also wrong. But Thayer’s report that Whalen oversaw the “White Squaw Mission” seems more rooted in fact—some people did indeed call the place that. And he was an author and playwright. He did know Merritt. (And maybe they played poker.) Perhaps Whalen and Merritt did send Thayer the pictures, as he said, but he was hardly the only one. The picture of Merritt that accompanied the obituary—showing him bare-chested, hefting a pitchfork—also appeared in Life Magazine in 1936, sent in by Whalen. Thayer could have been bosom friends with the two men—the evidence is not there, from what I have seen—but he also could have written them fan letters and gotten the pictures. Or, he could have written one, or both, when the Society was just starting looking for members to sign up.
Thayer, as far as I can tell, never outright lied about people being members when they weren’t: at most, he’d exaggerate someone’s off-handed joining the Society to promote it. Likely this was what happened here. Thayer approached, they agreed to join, and that was it, the full extent of their Fortean activities. And there is reason, beyond the biographical, to suggest that Whalen might have been inclined to join. He was something of a maverick, with an irreverent sense of humor. That same Life magazine noted that Whalen called Merritt “Satan” because of his story “7 Footprints to Satan.” This was not the conservative Catholicism that so worried Fred Shroyer!
But this is a Fortean story—and so there cannot be a nicely tied bow to the story. The confusion here comes from a small piece in Doubt 38 (October 1952). Three years after Whalen died, his surname appeared in a paragraph of credits for the issue. So maybe Whalen had sent in a clipping at some point, and Thayer held on to it, then used it when it was relevant. That would make sense, even if it did suggest that Whalen was more active in Forteanism than the above suggests. The problem, though, is that none of the reports mentioned in the issue come from before 1951. (Indeed, most of the issue covers Hayer’s vacation in Europe, with his wife, and the meeting of different Forteans there.) Maybe there was yet another Whalen who sent in material? Perhaps: but then this is the only other mention of the name, so who it is would have to remain unknown.
